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Dear reader Most employees travel to work and back home every working day. Large companies receive hundreds of incoming travellers within the timeframe of a couple of hours. Obviously, the commute represents a huge part of daily traffic. A part which is highly repetitive and predictable, and therefore has a high potential for behaviour change. Companies also have direct communication lines to all of their employees. For all of these reasons, it is crucial for cities and municipalities to turn their local businesses into allies in their sustainable mobility strategies. Since our last e-update on workplace mobility plans, many new initiatives have been undertaken and new results have been published. Time for an (e-)update! | |
Company travel plans |
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 Source: www.eltis.org  Photo courtesy of Mobiel 21  Photo courtesy of the MOBI project  Photo: Martina Nolte / Licence: Creative Commons CC-by-sa-3.0 en | The central instrument to coordinate sustainable mobility actions in an enterprise is a company travel plan (often also called mobility plan). It is often coordinated by a corporate mobility manager and sometimes complemented by personalised travel plans for individual employees (see our previous e-update). A good set of guidelines for company travel planning was produced by the European COMMERCE project. Too often, companies try to implement an isolated measure, e.g. carpooling, only to conclude that it does not work. Only a good mix of different push and pull measures – ‘carrots’ and ‘sticks’ – will have a significant impact on mobility behaviour. Carrots... Financial incentives probably are the most ‘tasty’ carrots. A very strong incentive is the tax-free home-to-work cycling mileage allowance, as it exists for instance in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. Last year, the French government conducted a pilot project to experiment with the introduction of such an allowance. Preliminary results show that a €0.25/km reward increases the modal share of cycling by 50%. On 1 July of this year, the government implemented a legal obligation for companies to reimburse (part of) the costs of the bike commute, but they still have to fix the tax-deductible amount, which will probably be only between €0.12 and €0.15/km (Source: Le Figaro – in French). The Austrian company Omicron (video in German, with English subtitles) has introduced a system of Ecomiles. Participating employees receive points for their sustainable commuting trips and for not using a parking space. They can exchange these points for vouchers for sport- or health-related purchases. In the Netherlands several projects have offered a financial reward up to €100 per month for people who avoid driving their car during peak hours, often in the context of major road works. And it worked: the project Spitsvrij (link in Dutch) for instance got some 3,000 cars out of the peak per working day. After the reward ended, the participants continued to avoid the peak for almost half of the trips. The project team estimates having saved societal costs of about 5.4 million euros in the first 1.5 year of implementation. Another project called Winnen van de file (“Beat the traffic jam” – link in Dutch) tried the same approach without a financial incentive. They built in gamification elements and rewarded their participants with points, rankings and prize draws. There were extra bonus points to be earned in an online game called Filevegen (“Swiping Traffic”). The same gamification approach is being developed in the MOBI project. Their game, called “From 5 to 4” gives companies their own gaming platform where colleagues can form teams and earn points by replacing the car by a sustainable mode for at least 1 day a week. A cute mascot called MOBI gives practical tips and motivational hints. Employers can use the website’s analytics page to gain insight into their employees’ travel behaviour. Apart from encouraging a shift to more sustainable modes, companies can also reduce the number of necessary trips through telework and teleconferences (see our e-update on the New way of working) or avoid peak-hour trips via more flexible working hours. For instance, the Travel Smart Pilot Programme (2012-2014) in Singapore managed to eliminate or shift 12% of peak-hour traffic by introducing telework and flexible hours, trial tickets and rewards for pre-peak PT use, and events such as early-morning yoga and fitness classes in the city. ... and sticks Next to incentives for using sustainable modes, it is wise to introduce disincentives for solo car use. In August 2011 the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) introduced a daily parking fee of €3 for employees. In spring 2012 the share of car drivers had dropped from 35 % to 27 % and public transport use had increased from 39 % to 44 %. However, there was a slight increase of parking in other areas without a fee from 2 % to 6 % (TØI rapport 1225/2012 - in Norwegian). Fee revenues have partly been used for free monthly public transport passes, which have been given to employees as prizes in a monthly lottery. Over time, the attitude among employees towards the parking fee improved. Reductions in parking capacity are also strong disincentives. Often, a move to a new location is the perfect occasion to reduce parking and hence car use. Some examples:
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Why do companies care about travel planning? |
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 Picture courtesy of the MoMa.BIZ project | A very strong motivator is when companies are experiencing parking pressure or other mobility problems. Other reasons are cost reductions or having more healthy employees and less absenteeism. However, a project in Utrecht, The Netherlands, found that most companies joined because of sustainability considerations (Source: Jos Hollestelle, &Morgen). Many companies care about having an improved, green corporate image and showing that they are not only causing traffic problems, but that they are also part of the solution. Corporate Social Responsibility has become an essential part of corporate management strategies. This trend has led to a proliferation of ‘green’ labels, certifications and standards (see for instance the Ecolabel Index directory). The Moma.BIZ project (2010-2012) followed this trend by creating a mobility label to assess the performance of business zones or individual companies when it comes to employee travel options. The assessment is based on a checklist that the businesses fill in online. |
Motivating companies through regulation |
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 Source: www.eltis.org  Photo courtesy of Mobiel 21 | The strongest motivation for companies to engage in mobility management is of course a legal obligation to make company travel plans. In the Brussels Capital Region in Belgium, every company with more than 100 employees has to make a mobility plan every 3 years with a diagnosis, action plan, monitoring and evaluation. For the diagnosis, they made a website (in Dutch and French) where employers can easily create an online travel behaviour survey and generate a report that compares the company’s results with those of other businesses (the city of Helsinki did something similar with their Commuting Calculator). For the action plan, there are several mandatory actions: appointing a contact person, communicating about the travel plan, organising annual awareness raising events, providing up to date information, providing a multi-modal accessibility plan, encouraging the use of PT, installing a sheltered and secured bicycle shed, considering the eco-score when purchasing or leasing vehicles and having a specific action plan for peak moments of air pollution. In Italy, companies and institutions of over 300 employees have been obliged to appoint a mobility manager and develop a travel plan since 1998. In 2000 the function of area mobility manager was created to support company mobility managers. (EPOMM mobility management monitor for Italy, 2011) Most cities have minimum requirements for building car parking spaces in new office buildings. They should however also introduce a maximum allowance and allow developers to stay under this maximum via a parking pay-off or a provision of mobility management alternatives. Recent examples include the contested COBRACE code in Brussels and the increased bike parking standards in London. For more information on parking and new developments, see our e-updates on land use planning and parking management. |
Taxes |
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 Source: www.eltis.org | If the national framework allows it, cities and municipalities can grant a discount on local taxes to companies who make a travel plan, or they can levy taxes on parking spaces made available to employees. Experiences such as the parking levy in Nottingham UK show that the potential impacts on the surrounding neighbourhoods have to be taken into account when introducing such a tax. On the national level a very important barrier to commuter behaviour change is the under-taxation of company cars, which is very common in Europe (see this European Commission study from 2010 or this OECD report from 2014). Company car users systematically drive more kilometres than other employees and are less inclined to change modes. |
Special offers |
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In Stuttgart, Germany, many companies set the first steps to company travel planning via the ‘Job ticket’, an annual season ticket for employees. When an employer contributes at least €10 to the ‘Job ticket’, it becomes 10% cheaper than a normal annual season ticket. Without the contribution, the Job ticket is only 5% cheaper. | |
Campaigns and awareness raising |
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 Photo courtesy of the Bike2Work project  Photo courtesy of the Brussels Capital Region | Of course, the annual European Car-free Day during the European Mobility Week is a great opportunity for cities to raise awareness among their companies and commuters. But many cities, regions or countries have also developed campaigns of their own. See for instance:
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Especially for cycling test drives are very convincing (see the GoPedelec Manual p.50). That is why some municipalities have bought a test fleet to lend out to companies. Some examples:
Read these 9 tips for running ‘Try-a-bike’ events to get you started. |
Organise and support |
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 Photo: Ralph Hollenstein - Pedal Piraten e.U. © | Cities can also support companies to make their mobility greener by:
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National programmes for Company Mobility Management |
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 Optimising Use in the Netherlands  Smart Work in Finland | A national programme creates continuity and more systematic efforts. Again some examples:
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Conclusion |
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 Photo courtesy of Mobiel 21 | Of course, good cycling infrastructure and public transport provisions are necessary conditions for company travel plans to be effective. But there are many other things that public authorities can do to encourage and support companies in their quest for more sustainable mobility. Simply promoting the company travel planning approach requires no investment costs or complex technology and can have a significant impact on travel behaviour. |
Useful resources |
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